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7.05.2012

Great Article from the Redemptorist's Newsletter:

Commentary
A Catholic Priest's letter to the New York Times
“A Falling Tree Makes More Noise than a Thousand Trees Growing”
Father Martin Lasarte, SDB

I am a simple Catholic priest who feels happy and proud of his calling. I have been a missionary in Angola for 20 years.

I have been frequently reading in the media but above all
in your paper about the topic of pedophile priests. This is often done
with morbid interest, hunting for details in the lives of priests for
errors in the distant past. There is a priest in a US city who is in
his 70’s, another in Australia in his 80’s, and so on and others more
current… without a doubt all these cases are reprehensible!

There are journalists who present a well thought out and
balanced picture, but others exaggerate, filling their reports with
prejudices and even hate. I feel a great sadness for the terrible wrong
that priests who ought to be signs of God’s love, have been instead a
deadly dagger into the lives of innocent people. There is nothing that
can justify their acts. There is no doubt that the Church must be on
the side of those who are weak and most vulnerable. For this reason,
all efforts that we can take to prevent and protect the dignity of
children ought always to be an absolute priority.

However, it is curious that there is little news and a
lack of interest for the thousands of priests who sacrifice their life
and dedicate their life for millions of children, for adolescents and
for the most underprivileged in the four corners of the world.

It seems to me that your paper is uninterested in the
fact that I had to transport from Cangumbe to Lwena (Angola) many
scrawny ragged children over roads filled with landmines because of the
war in 2002 because neither the government could do it nor could the
NGOs get authorization; that I had to bury dozens of children dead
because of the displacement caused by the war; that we saved the lives
of thousands of persons in Mexico by means of the only health station
that existed in a 90,000 sq. km area along with the distribution of food
and seed. That we were able to educate and have schools over the last
10 years for more than 110,000 children.

Nor is there interest in the fact that with other priests
we helped nearly 15,000 people in guerilla camps after they gave up
their guns, because the food from the government and the ONGs did not
arrive. It did not make headlines when a 75 year old priest, Father
Roberto, went through the city of Luanda taking care of street children,
bringing them to a safe house so that they could be detoxified from
gasoline that they inhaled while trying to earn a living as flame
throwers.

Adult literacy for hundreds of prisoners does not make
the news. That other priests like Father Stephane set up transition
homes so that young people who were mistreated, beaten and even raped
could find refuge. Neither that Father Maiato who at 80 visits the
homes of the poor one by one comforting the sick and despairing. It’s
not news that more than 6,000 from among the 40,000 priests and
religious have left their country and their families to serve their
brothers and sisters in leprosarium, in hospitals, in refugee camps, in
orphanages for children accused of sorcery or orphans of parents who
have died of Aids, in schools for the very poor, in centres for
professional training, in welcoming centres for those who are HIV
positive….etc.

Or, above all, giving their life in parishes and on
missions, motivating people to live better lives and above all to love.
It’s not news when my friend Father Marc-Aurele, in order to save
children during the war in Angola, brought them from Kalulo to Dondo and
when returning from this mission was gunned down on the road in a hail
of bullets. That Brother Francois with five female catechists were
killed in an accident while going to an isolated rural area of the
country.

That dozens of missionaries in Angola died because of
poor sanitary conditions, because of simple malaria. That others were
thrown in the air because of landmines while visiting their faithful.
In the cemetery in Kalulo are the tombs of the first priests who came to
the region….none were over 40.

It’s never news to follow the daily life of a “normal”
priest, in his difficulties and his joys, giving of himself to the
community he serves without any show. The truth is that none of us is
looking to make news, only wanting to bring the Good News, this News
which began Easter morning without a lot of fanfare. A tree that falls
makes a lot more noise than a thousand that are growing. We create a
lot more noise about a priest who makes a mistake than over the thousand
who give their lives for the poor and neglected.

I do not pretend to defend the Church and priests. A
priest is neither a hero nor a neurotic. He is simply a normal man who
as a human being tries to follow Jesus and to serve Him in his brothers
and sisters. He has weaknesses and failings like any human being; but
equally he has beauty and dignity like everyone…. To focus on a painful
topic in an obsessive and persecuting manner and to forget the larger
picture creates a truly offensive caricature of the Catholic priesthood
by which I feel offended.

I ask you only, my journalist friend, to look for the
Truth, the Good and the Beautiful. That would do honour to your
profession.

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